The Cartographers’ Guild is a forum created by and for map makers and aficionados, a place where every aspect of cartography can be admired, examined, learned, and discussed. Our membership consists of professional designers and artists, hobbyists, and amateurs—all are welcome to join and participate in the quest for cartographic skill and knowledge.

Although we specialize in maps of fictional realms, as commonly used in both novels and games (both tabletop and role-playing), many Guild members are also proficient in historical and contemporary maps. Likewise, we specialize in computer-assisted cartography (such as with GIMP, Adobe apps, Campaign Cartographer, Dundjinni, etc.), although many members here also have interest in maps drafted by hand.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ. You will have to register before you can post or view full size images in the forums.

Map of the Twin Kingdoms of Aran and Ilan - Handdrawn

Hi all,

This is not the first map I post about these two countries, as you might remember. This time however I'm going to (try to) create a more handdrawn look, instead of the satellite image sort of map I used before. I purchased a drawing tablet (the cheap sort: a Wacom Bamboo) and I'm now getting accustomed to using it.

So this is the map I'm starting from:

And this is what I have at the moment:

### latest WIP ###

I already have a fairly nice parchment texture at the ready that I'll add as soon as the rest of the details are finished. For now I'm mainly concerned about the look and feel of the mountains and the tapering rivers - it seems I still have to finetune those quite a bit (I just jumped from GIMP to Photoshop and ran into an inspiringly steep learning curve).

I think the mountains look great! I like the spiked style you got there. Nothing wrong with the style of rivers either in my opinion. Only thing that I'm not sure about is your coastline stroke. With the smaller islands and lakes the inside stroke hides the white completely, and the strokes look heavier than they are when zoomed out.

I'm not a big fan of the "base map" (even if the colors are quite harmonious).
On the contrary, your "more handdrawn" version is really good. I like the shape of the lands and your mountains are just excellent!
I'm sure that your gonna do a very good map from this one.

You're right, Max, the mountains DO seem to be leaning to the left a bit. That must've happened subconsciously (maybe my being lefthanded has to do something with it?). In order to address this, however, I chose to create a hell of a lot of extra mountains, and mirror those I already had in my base document. That way at least some of my new mountains will lean to the right, which should balance the overall feel.

My mountains base document (I'm still adding to it as you can see):

I also added a first preliminary shading to the mountains. Colours etc will of course be changed afterwards.

I think the mountains look great! I like the spiked style you got there. Nothing wrong with the style of rivers either in my opinion. Only thing that I'm not sure about is your coastline stroke. With the smaller islands and lakes the inside stroke hides the white completely, and the strokes look heavier than they are when zoomed out.

Sorry for not replying to this earlier, Salama. You're absolutely right about the coastlines. What do you think: should I eliminate the smaller dots (those without any white in them)? Or should I try and diminish the stroke width?

Originally Posted by - Max -

Yes probably, at the start, I seem to have some mountains leaning to the right aswell

Now as to the new, handdrawn version...to be honest, the mountains look way too big to me. If i look at the rivers and the overall map and your worldmap, i think this part of the world is quite big...not just a little local snippet. Therefore i think the mountains are out of proportion. The ones at the bottom left of the continent are quite ok, i guess...but most of the others are too big to my eyes.
Otherwise, this looks like it will be another good looking map. And the mountains, stylewise, are very well done.

Now as to the new, handdrawn version...to be honest, the mountains look way too big to me.

As a matter of fact I had the same feeling about the mountains. I guess I got carried away by my enthousiasm ;-). After all the bigger mountains are so much richer in texture than the smaller ones, which makes the smaller ridges look almost cheap in comparison. The thing is, I wanted to convey the idea that this central mountain ridge is really, really unsurpassible (except for two mountain passes), but maybe I did indeed overdo it a bit.

Who else thinks my mountains are a tad too big to be realistic? I can always redraw them - it should be fun!

Okay, I did a quick test on the central mountain range. I'm at work now, so I can't use my drawing tablet to add the shading just yet, but I managed to at least recreate the mountain range with smaller mountains. Below you can find the "old" mountains on the left, and the new (as yet unshaded) ones on the right. Let me know which of the two you prefer!